


A Short History of a Love Token

by thegirl



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: F/M, The Crucifix, This necklace has seen some shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-16 01:38:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3469613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirl/pseuds/thegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The crucifix is forged in 1602, for the Comtesse de Rochefort. It is ornately decorated, with rubies and licks of gold and silver. It passes to the new Comte de Rochefort, the late Comtesse’s son, when she does. Whilst the Comte was not the best loved of men, nor the most loving, he did care for his mother, and as she had prized it for as long as he could remember, he vowed he would too.</p>
<p>For many years it sat beneath his shirt collar, emerging only on the Sabbath and for prayers he often said before battle - Dieu me guider, Dieu me protégé, Dieu ait pitié. And then, the Comte met her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Short History of a Love Token

**Author's Note:**

> Basically I have just written this in forty minutes, start to finish, exactly 2000 words. I couldn't stop once I started because this idea would not leave me frickin' alone. The Idea being: that crucifix could tell some stories if it could talk. This also isn't my usual style, so please be nice. Enjoy!

The crucifix is forged in 1602, for the Comtesse de Rochefort. It is ornately decorated, with rubies and licks of gold and silver. It passes to the new Comte de Rochefort, the late Comtesse’s son, when she does. Whilst the Comte was not the best loved of men, nor the most loving, he did care for his mother, and she had prized it for as long as he could remember, he vowed he would too.

For many years it sat beneath his shirt collar, emerging only on the Sabbath and for prayers he often said before battle - _Dieu me guider, Dieu me protégé, Dieu ait pitié._ And then, the Comte met her.

Rochefort, as mentioned earlier, was not a loving man. It is unclear what it was about her - the fact she was untouchable, that she was so innocent, so regal and strong before she had even been taught how to be. Rochefort had met many women, all wishing to become the Comtesse de Rochefort, but this was the first, and the last that had ever effected him in such a way.

Officially, the Spanish princess was to be his pupil - he was to show her how to behave in French society, their customs and greetings and quirks a foreigner would not know. She was with him for a year, and although nothing came of it, Rochefort thought that sometimes when she looked at him, there was something there. She was inflexible and brilliant, and Rochefort loved her, more than he had ever loved his mother - or perhaps just differently. He convinced himself she loved him too - she had never met King Louis, surely she would remember him and prefer him to that man? The man his courtiers laughed at behind his back, and said he was _not as great as his father, not great at all_.

So he gave her the crucifix, on their last night together, before she was to be escorted to Paris and far from his side - her eyes widened when he held it out to her, and it was that expression he remembered most fondly when he was held prisoner in a Spanish prison for five years - that and her reply “Oh, my dear Rochefort. Are you sure? I shall wear it always.” He remembered it for so long it changed, from a joyful thanks to a loving parting, and he held onto his memories until that was all that remained of him.

And so, the crucifix changed owners.

Whereas Rochefort had worn it on a golden chain, Anne preferred to wear it on a choker, or simply pin it to the front of her gown. She wore it on her wedding day, and just before she was to walk down the aisle she squeezed it so tight the sharp, golden edges made indents in her palm. She could hear Rochefort’s voice then, in her ear - _bravery, your majesty._

He had always been so kind, and such a great friend. She wished he was there, a guest in the first pew whose eye she could catch for reassurance, but he was gone on a mission, for the Cardinal, one of France’s many inhabitants she had never met.

She knew no one at her wedding except her brother, who led her to her King she was to marry. Nobody questioned the crucifix - it was ornate and a proud proclamation of her faith, as she was a good Catholic woman, which was one of the few things the people of France liked about her, in the beginning.

In 1630, when she met Aramis, she hadn’t taken it off for more than a day in six years.

Anne had long since resigned herself to a loveless marriage - she was not producing heirs, the King was an overgrown child, and the tensions between her country of birth and her country of marriage were becoming ever more strained. Aramis was like a guilty pleasure to her, alone in her bed chambers - he had been like the princes in the stories she had been read by her madre, handsome and brave and selfless, and he had saved her. She was a married woman, of course, and nothing would come of it, but she was so alone, and for a while at least he was a lovely escape from her life.

As she thought of him, night after night, innocently at first, helping her down from her carriage and dancing with her, the sun shining in his face, lighting up his dark brown eyes. Then came the dreams of kisses that made her wake up blushing, biting her lip and trying not to smile. Anne was not an experienced woman - as a princess she had been pure before her marriage, and after her marriage she was faithful to her husband, who had little more experience than her. But some of her ladies told her of... other things. And sometimes, she imagined them and woke up with the crucifix burning hot around her neck, resting accusingly on her collarbone.

It was the Lord punishing her for her immoral thoughts, she decided. Perhaps even Rochefort, who was said to have perished in her homeland years before. The thought of her friend made her heart pang - she had no friends, not anymore.

But, maybe she could have one.

And so, Anne passed on the crucifix once more, to her dear Aramis, with his bravery and good looks and devoutness. A dream, she scolded herself. Just a dream.

Aramis, unlike Anne, did not promise never to remove the crucifix, but never did anyway. He never hid it either, like Rochefort, left it hanging outside his jacket for all to see, and kissed it when he woke, killed a man, prayed and went to bed, and all the while he thought of the queen.

The first time someone asks where he acquired such fine jewellery, he stumbles over his words, before finally saying it was gifted to him by a friend. And that was what he said everytime since, when they became more than friends - protectors, lovers, parents, secret-keepers, dreamers.

“Maybe,” Aramis had whispered into Anne’s hair, in the monastery where it all went wrong, or perhaps where it all began going right, he wasn’t sure anymore “in another life, we could be married.”

Anne looked up at him, with her clear blue eyes, and smiled like she could see right through him, and in a quiet voice said “I would like that a lot, dear Aramis.” before touching his cheek with a soft finger pad, as if making sure he was real.

The child that would be known to the world as Louis XIV, the son of Louis III, was born nine months after, and after all the pain of childbirth was gone, Anne thought it was strange that after trying so many times with Louis, no child had come, and having a single night with Aramis had resulted in a healthy son and heir to France, and then thought gleefully it was not her fault as they had all said.

And through all this - the Dauphin’s birth, the ongoing almost between the Queen and Aramis, who in her mind she referred to as her prince, long since having stopped internally chastising herself for behaving like a foolish girl in love, as that was what she was - Aramis wore the crucifix, and kissed it at least three times daily.

When Rochefort returned from Spain, he had managed to save the majority of his sanity by sacrificing the part that had always loved Anne, and had come back even harder and crueller than before, and somehow desperate for love like he had never been before.

She had been wearing a high necked gown the first time he knelt before her, so he assumed it was tucked beneath. It wasn’t there at the Dauphin’s christening, but he hadn’t noticed because of all the plots he had been weaving, as Rochefort had secured his escape by promising to be a double agent for Spain - it was amazing what captivity did to men, how mad and desperate it made them.

After a few weeks, he began to wonder. But she must still have it, she must, she said, she _promised._

But he needs to keep an eye on his beloved, keep her safe, make sure she isn’t making any silly mistakes, so he begins to use her lady to spy on her - the very same lady that Aramis had been sleeping with in attempts to get closer to his son, who by now had decided that the crucifix, no matter how sharp it was in places, was one of his favourite things - the baby liked the way it shined, and the feel of the gemstones beneath his tiny finger tips, and the man’s laugh that sounded whenever he grasped for it.

Anne and Aramis had been careful. So very careful, but Rochefort - Rochefort had lost a lot of things, and that made him dangerous. That made him tuck a note away in the back of his mind to make sure Anne still had it, and then he noticed the way the ladies of court looked at Aramis, the way his spy did, the way said man kissed an ornate crucifix far too richly decorated for a man of his position to afford.

“Get it for me,” he told his spy, sudden ice cold terror rushing through his veins.

Rochefort was not a loving man. But in all those years imprisoned, he had put all his hopes on the young woman who had laughed with baby blue eyes and called him friend, whose neck had bowed towards him as he gave her a crucifix, his mother’s crucifix-

But she wouldn’t. Not Anne.

For the first time in seven years Rochefort held his own crucifix, and wished he had never set eyes on the damned thing again.

“She said she would wear it always,” he says to himself, knocked off balance as he stares at the jewellery in his hand. Seven rubies, a scar on the back where he himself had run a nail along it as a child, the pricking edges that used to make his mother jump when they touched her bare skin.

Rochefort was not a loving man. But his world, of lies and intrigue and plots and scheming, all fell away because a young girl had not kept her word. Had not loved him as he loved her.

“Give it back to him,” he ordered, trying to force the dread thing away from him as quickly as he dared “Make sure he suspects nothing.”

What had he thought? She’d love him, she’d wait?

Yes, he realized, and closed his eyes in defeat. None could see him like this, but he had to rip himself apart and get her out of his veins, where she had become a part of his very DNA. He had believed.

Rochefort’s icy eyes opened once more, and he straightened up. He would not be so foolish again.

The crucifix was not burned, but the young Louis IV at the age of eight had asked for it from his favourite musketeer, who had never been able to deny him anything. He wore it in his twenties, before eventually sealing it away in his vault, and coming across it every few years and smiling as he grew older and older, remembering the man he had adored as a child.

It then was discovered by Marie Antoinette when going through the palace jewels. Her husband had never laid eyes upon it before, but she liked it, and wore it on a choker like a woman had done generations before. When she lost her head, it was taken by a young boy who prised out the rubies in exchange for bread and melted down the gold for rent.

The crucifix was made and unmade, but it mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed! If you did, you know the drill, please leave kudos and reviews :)


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